"We've drawn on the safety experiences of the Sydney and Athens Olympic Games, and endeavor to build reliable Olympic fire protection systems to ensure that we can reach the goal of a safe Olympics," said Li Jin, Vice Director of the Beijing Fire Bureau.

Fire might seem an unlikely problem at an Olympic event, but in fact it has posed a threat before. At the opening of the 25th Barcelona Olympic Games, the hotel where the former President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Samaranch was staying caught fire. Thanks to a well-equipped fire emergency services, there were no severe consequences. During the 26th Olympic Games, a fire occurred in the Olympic park in Atlanta that left two people dead and more than 100 injured.

In order to host an Olympic Games the host country has to prove to the IOC that it has a disaster prevention plan in place. In fact, this is one of the most important factors that the IOC looks at when assessing a candidate country.

The Beijing Municipal Government is committed to spending 44.85 million yuan ($6.08 million) on the basic construction of 13 new fire prevention spots. At the same time, a modern fire-training center, which occupies 11 hectares, will also be built. The center will be open to the public, to teach people how to deal with a fire. The total number of fire emergency spots will climb from 66 to 100 next year.

Two-minute fire fighting

Beijing has put forward the goal of "two-minute fire fighting" (meaning a fire truck will be at the scene within two minutes of a fire call) in its bid for the 2008 Olympic Games.

The Beijing Fire Brigade carefully studied the experiences of former Olympics and similar international events, and decided that crowded areas such as competition venues and competitors' living areas will be the keys to effective fire prevention.

They also decided to build up three permanent fire prevention spots respectively in the Olympic central area, the athletes' village and Wukesong cultural and sports center. The Beijing Municipal Government will pay for the basic construction, equipment and communication facilities.

This is one part of the promise of "building up the fire prevention system for Olympic venues" made by Beijing to the IOC when it successfully won the bid for the 2008 Olympic Games. Beijing has already built complete facilities in all Olympic venues, registered hotels and hospitals including 31 competition venues, 61 training venues (among which 16 are in the competition venues and the other 45 are in independent training venues), 18 non-competition venues, 122 registered hotels and 21 hospitals.

"Take prevention as the initial step, deal with it fast in case of fire risks," is a principle of the Beijing Fire Bureau. "Firemen around the Olympic venues must arrive on the spot of a risk within one minute, and the assistant firemen must arrive within five minutes," is one of the goals to integrate the fire-fighting resources of the entire city and form an effective, fast-reacting Olympic fire-fighting system.

Beijing Fire Bureau has been ahead of the game in terms of organizing an Olympic fire prevention system, and had its own plans on how to tackle potential problems long before others made their suggestions.

At present, in all the already constructed venues, apart from the fire prevention system, there is also a directing room, a duty room, an on-call room and a temporary fire spot. All of these features help to make the Olympic venues safe.

Beijing adopted the "performance-based fire protection design," a creative design in construction based on fire-protection engineering. Based on the details of the structure, function and internal combustion of the buildings, it applies the theories and methods of fire science and fire-protection engineering, and makes quantitative analysis of the danger level of the fire as well as drawing out economic and rational fire-prevention plans to ensure buildings and spectators are as safe as can be. It provides scientific evidence for the safe management of fire prevention in the planning, construction and operation of the Olympic venues.

Beijing Fire Brigade has also adopted its own fire assessment steps: collect information; identify objectives to be protected; risk level evaluation; risk level justification; put forward suggestions.

More convenient

In order to ensure the safety of the fire prevention system during the Beijing Olympics, relative departments have built up an advanced connective directing system of fire prevention. According to information on the official website of the Beijing Olympic Games, this system is supported by the Beijing 119 fire communication directing system and has the fire prevention directing rooms in Olympic venues at its forefront.

The system will connect and share information between agencies responsible for fire prevention in order to form a more efficient and comprehensive communication system. Upgrading of the Beijing 119 fire communication system has already been completely finished.

The Beijing Municipal Government has also formulated an emergency management plan aimed at providing a more convenient service.

Relative departments have completed a real time investigation of the Olympic venues, key Olympic areas, fire engines and staff distribution in preparation for the event. During the Olympic Games, the fire prevention system must provide good information and a rapid response in order to safeguard the public in the event of an emergency.

Olympic Briefs

Improved Olympic weather forecasts

A detailed weather forecast system that will be used during the Olympic Games is fully functional, according to leading officials of the Beijing Meteorological Bureau.

The system is multi-layered. The first layer is a series of automatic meteorological stations in 15 Olympic venues that have been in place since 2003. The functions of these stations include observing temperature, pressure, moisture, wind direction and wind speed, as well as other weather factors that could influence sporting events.

Beijing has also built 176 automatic meteorological stations across the city to form an observation web. The stations are distributed across downtown Beijing every 5 km and at intervals of 10 km to 15 km in the suburbs.

The bureau has also developed an advanced forecast system and completed the development of a meteorological service system. It has introduced a computer system to provide a very solid platform of both hardware and software for the detailed forecast service. A mobile automatic meteorological system for use during the cycling competition has also been prepared in the city.

Analysis of the expected weather during Beijing Olympics suggests that it will be changeable with rain every three days on average. Compared with the former Olympic Games, the weather of the Beijing Olympics is more difficult to forecast, but forecasts will be more detailed.

The Sidney and Athens Olympics provided weather forecasts two days in advance. Beijing will provide forecasts 72 hours ahead, with updates every three hours. For some special competitions such as aquatic sports, shooting, and track and field events, there will be 24-hour weather forecasts for the venues with updates every hour.

Chinese Bible belt

Beijing will provide high quality facilities for religious services during the Olympic Games next year, said Ye Xiaowen, Director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs (SARA) on December 8 at a celebration ceremony for the printing of 50 million copies of The Bible. Facilities will be provided for athletes and tourists of all religious groups from across the world. belief.

The Chinese Protestant Church has printed and published 44 million copies of The Bible since 1979 and in recent years around 3 million copies have been printed per year, mainly in simplified Chinese. There are more than 50 versions of The Bible in China, including Chinese-English, braille, one for children and 8 in minority languages. The Chinese Protestant Church has also set up a sales network across China and actively provides printing services for foreign churches as well as printing and exporting The Bible in Chinese and foreign languages to more than 60 countries around the world.